The Atlantic League started with six clubs in 1998 and expanded to eight in 2000, when Staten Island joined in 2022 it created a need for a tenth team to balance the schedule. The organization in Lexington stepped up and hosted two teams in '22 but the experiment was not particularly successful. The affiliated minor leagues were massively reorganized in 2021, several long-standing MiLB cities lost their franchises with the Orioles' affiliate in Frederick, Maryland among the casualties. Frederick immediately received a team in the new MiLB Draft League, in 2023 that team is sharing its stadium with the newest ALPB entry (I guess we could call it Lexington: Version 2). The new club is known as the "Spire City Ghost Hounds" (and I'm not even going to try to explain it), on this Friday evening they were appearing in Lancaster for the very first time. After the drubbing the Barnstormers took from Long Island this game was much more competitive but the end result was ultimately the same. The visiting Ghost Hounds went up 1-0 in the second, in the home third the Stormers tied it on back-to-back doubles from Jack Conley and Anthony Peroni (back with the Stormers from a brief stint elsewhere), Trace Loehr's RBI hit scored Peroni to give the Stormers a 2-1 lead. Spire City (perhaps that should be in quotation marks?) tied it 2-2 in the fifth and that score held through the remainder of regulation play. In the tenth inning the game fell apart for the Barnstormers, a four-spot gave the Hounds a 6-2 lead. The Stormers got one back in the bottom half on an RBI single by Loehr, the final was 6-3. Jaret Lakind started and went the first six, Garrett Granitz worked the fateful tenth and took the decision. The series continues on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon (weather permitting, the ever-present threat of showers is in the forecast). Take care, thanks for reading.
